


In the Unflinching Chill of Autumn

by classics_above_classics



Series: Alice Dorothy and Stories Set Elsewhere [16]
Category: Elsewhere University (Webcomic)
Genre: Conversations, Gen, Starvation, mildly graphic depictions of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 12:33:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19905778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/classics_above_classics/pseuds/classics_above_classics
Summary: Autumn the second.(Lento is still not here.)





	In the Unflinching Chill of Autumn

**Author's Note:**

> Please be careful with this one! There's some fighting in the later half of this work. It's only for a few paragraphs or so, but it's still there. There's mention of a spine being snapped, and note of the blood coming from it. Also, throughout a lot of the later half and probably in the next update, there's a lot of depiction of starvation. It's not really in-depth here, but please watch out!

The land of Autumn is crisp and cold. Even now, Lyric-Weaver shivers under it.

The crow-boy beside them, dark and flighty and teasing, does not seem to mind it at first. But they are not stupid. They are not, under any circumstances, stupid. They see how he flicks his gaze towards them, taking in every little shudder at the chill of brisk air with an air of smug satisfaction. They see how he revels in the cold they hate, all wrapped up in the contradictorily warm colours of autumn leaves. They see how he smirks at them, black eyes glittering mockingly in the dimming sun.

They hate how goddamn cold it is. And they are sure to the deepest wood of their branches that winter will be even worse.

“You have anything more to offer?” Ban asks lightly, gesturing down at the picnic basket they swing in their branches, in their hand. Instinctively, Lyric-Weaver clutches it tighter and closer, fixing their companion with a furious glare.

They also hate Ban. So, in all, this is turning out to be a less than enjoyable search.

“Come on. There are people around here who’re just _itching_ for a bit of food,” Ban tries, clasping his hands behind his back with a look that tries for innocent and fails spectacularly. “Wouldn’t it be unwise to walk around here with so much of it?”

“Wouldn’t taking it out of a warded basket be even more unwise?” They’re making a valid point. They are. So the soft, doubting expression Ban shoots them has to be a ploy. “Besides, I am not here to break bread or to offer alms to _certain_ desperate fae. I am here to find a girl.”

“And aren’t you just having the best luck finding her?” The question sounds hollow, sounds as sarcastic as a fae can get, clearly doubtful but just barely within the boundaries of truthful speech. When they look towards Ban, he’s frowning, the playful smile fallen away. It feels oddly… off. Wrong.

“I _intend to find her_. Stop sounding so disbelieving, little crow.” Lyric-Weaver waves it aside, continuing forward. They can hear the human beat within Autumn, deep and swift and thumping. They just have to follow it.

“You intend to find a single girl in all the lands of the fae. In every season. In every Court.” Ban sighs. “And you call _me_ little.”

“You are little. As a bird, at least.”

“I am always a bird. As you are, past that human body, a tree.” The crow-boy, as usual, seems to be amused. At least one person on this search is. “That is what you are, isn’t it? A big, leafy tree, with all those curled branches and those green summer leaves. Maybe not quite as big as you think you are, but… big enough to loom. Big enough to act like you’re someone who matters.” He laughs. It’s a high, unpleasant sound. “If humans have taught me anything, it’s that nothing in this world matters. But we’re all just big enough to think we do.”

“Are you complimenting me?” In complete honesty, Lyric-Weaver cannot tell. With Ban, almost every word sounds that particular blend of sarcasm and truth that only a member of the fair folk can achieve. “If you are, it’d be much easier to believe without the constant nihilism. And besides that, I am not a tree. I am so, so much more than a tree.”

“Summer egos,” the crow-boy laments, melodramatically clutching a hand to his chest. It’s an almost intrinsically human gesture. It’s enough to make the Lyric-Weaver’s wind circle surprised around them. It’s too human for the Other lands. “Isn’t a tree made up of just the same things as you?”

“What I am and what I am not is none of your business.” Lyric-Weaver crosses their arms, careful to keep the basket facing away from their companion. “And did you not say that _nothing matters_? If so, then it should not matter to you.”

“You’re such an angry thing, little Summer tree.” Ban sighs. “What could that human girl possibly have done to make that happen?”

_They do not want to be used. They do not want to be used. They do not want to be used._

“She attacked me,” Lyric-Weaver says bluntly, snapping the little leaves trying to break from their semblance further within them. The feel of that magic was wrong. Unfathomably, infuriatingly wrong. It was invasive and unfamiliar and they want the source of it _dead_. “Do you understand now?”

“Must have been a bad attack,” Ban notes. “If she ran, if you’re hunting her, if you’re not just going to curse her…”

“Oh, don’t even start. Curses wouldn’t be nearly enough to properly punish her. I’m going to rip her apart myself.”

The crow-boy lets out a low whistle. “Sucks to be her.”

The conversation is pointless. Nothing but a distraction. Lyric-Weaver huffs, turning their attention towards the search, to the hunt. They want to be back to the human world soon. They want to see their friend. Maybe Connor will take the accursed girl’s broken, bleeding body as repayment enough for attacking their roommate.

Connor. God, Connor. They can’t stop thinking about the way they’d looked, back at the cafeteria. Betrayed. Hateful. Loathing. They never want Connor to look at them like that again.

That, at least a little, is why they have to find her faster. The girl Lento will pay for everything she has wrought.

They will find her. They’ll make sure of it.

⋈

The Autumn lands are… hollow, in a way that Lyric-Weaver’s never seen before. The rhythmic beat of everything living here echoes within the trees, every one of them sounding almost lonely when it is in focus and separate from the cacophony. It’s disorienting. Lyric-Weaver supposes it would be that way to anyone in a new Court’s lands, but still it takes them off guard whenever they listen. Even Ban’s pounding heartbeat beside them rings hollow in their ears. Nothing is as clear and light as Summer’s.

This is not Lyric-Weaver’s place. They know that.

Still, they search the hollow rhythms, and still they find nothing. Wherever the girl Lento is, she is hiding well. The only places Lyric-Weaver cannot listen for are the places set aside for the nobles, for the truly important within every Court- and any human daring to trespass within those places is already dead. Lento is not within their reach. The knowledge of that _itches_. It scrabbles at the marrow of their semblance’s pale bones, at the edge of their vision and in the ringing of their ears. They know she is not here. They know they are not looking in the right place.

But they are being watched. They have humiliated themselves enough, needing an escort through the Autumn lands. They have to keep looking.

Ban is shooting them little glances out the corner of his eyes. They are doubtful glances, small and slightly pitying. Perhaps he knows. Perhaps he does not. Either way, Lyric-Weaver will have to ignore it. What he knows and what he does not know does not matter. What matters is getting through the whole of Autumn before giving up the search. They cannot-

-cannot what? Let him win? This is no contest.

They cannot admit their doubt till the end. They have to see this whole, futile endeavour through.

So it is settled. They will keep at their search, despite their doubts and their certainty. They have to see this through. They cannot let him know that the girl is not-

“Hey,” Ban cuts in, startling Lyric-Weaver from their thoughts, “are you close to finding her yet? ‘Cause we’ve been walking in a straight line pretty much from the start of this whole thing, and that isn’t going to help us find anyone unless you’ve got some ability to help you on that front.”

“Do you doubt my capabilities?” Lyric-Weaver says sharply. “For the love of- yes, I’m close to-”

The words cut themselves off in their throat. Lyric-Weaver curses under their breath, trying again. “I have searched almost all of the Autumn lands I have reached. You’re free to leave me be once I’ve bartered my way into Winter.”

“And you have enough food still to barter your way into Winter?” Ban raises a disbelieving eyebrow at the basket Lyric-Weaver is carefully keeping on the side of their body that does not face him. “How much did you even make?”

“Enough that I think I could barter for Spring, too.” Lyric-Weaver takes in his approving expression proudly. “But we’ll have to get to that later.”

“Sure.” Ban bites his lip, turning hesitantly away. “That much, huh? And you’re heading straight for Winter with it? That much food, this close to the border…”

“What use do the Autumn fae have for human food? Past some frivolous luxury, I doubt any of you would need it.” And didn’t they store it or something, in the Autumn season? Didn’t they squirrel food away in little nooks and crannies, all ready for Winter to come and render the trees empty? Or perhaps that was just animals in the human world.

“You’ve got a point there. We of the Autumn Court don’t need your food.” The crow-boy does not turn towards them. “But there are others. There are always others. Especially this close to the borders.”

“What others?”

And as if this is the cue for something to come out, as if it is what draws creatures near, there is the snap of a branch behind them.

Lyric-Weaver whirls around, stepping back just in time to avoid a sudden lunge. There’s a heavy beat pounding in their ears, deep and quick and hollow. Their true form snaps free from its human semblance, branches and thorns pointing threateningly towards their attacker. The attacker does not seem to care.

“Oops,” Ban quips teasingly, morphing back into his crow body and flitting upwards into the air. Another of the things besieging them slams forcefully into Lyric-Weaver’s back, clawing for the basket they wrap securely in branches. It’s instinct alone that makes them slam it straight into the nearest tree. The sickening crack that follows is of bone, not bark.

“What are these things?!” Lyric-Weaver demands furiously, whipping vines around the struggling second one to keep it in place. It’s biting their vines, trying to tear at them with thin, bony hands. “What do they want?!”

Just as they realize, as they turn to the one who’d been broken in their attack, Ban responds.

“They’re humans. And they’re hungry.”

What lies slumped against the tree is a body.

It should not feel as wrong as it does. Still, Lyric-Weaver stares down at the corpse with a dawning sort of horror, registering the bass beat that is slowly fading away in their ears. The human cannot be more than eighteen, is barely more than the ones they’d left behind at the University. Its- _Their_ eyes are sunken, their cheeks the same, their muscle and fat wasting away till they are nothing but skin and bones. The dark liquid dripping sluggishly from the base of their spine… it has to be blood.

Lyric-Weaver turns, meeting the second one’s eyes. They look desperate. Mindless, now, their conscious thought worn away, but still… desperate.

“What happened to them?” Lyric-Weaver asks, turning away from the one they have tied up in their vines. “Why have they become…”

“This?” Ban shrugs. “Not all that sure. All I know is that they were the University’s. They got lost here, or in the wrong place, and ended up… like this. All wrong in the head and empty in the stomach. It’s kind of pathetic. That one looks like it got past the Winter border. See how pale it is, even with the dark skin? Or, not really pale- greyed out. Like someone left it somewhere far too cold. The Autumn ones always look more warm than that.”

 _Did no-one try to help them?,_ Lyric-Weaver almost asks. They stop themselves before they can say it. Not even the Autumn fae or the ones over in Spring, the ones who were softer towards the humans of the University, would do so without receiving something in return. It would take a very young, very bold fae to try anything. And even then they’d grow tired in time.

Lyric-Weaver glances at the struggling, wasted thing in their grasp, an unfamiliar emotion twisting their branches. They can’t help but imagine their friend in this position. They can’t just look away.

The branches around the basket unwind, and one reaches in, carefully unloading a bowl full of warm food. Lyric-Weaver unties the human in their grasp and carefully sets it in their hands, curling their fingers tight around it. They don’t hesitate for a moment, digging in with the enthusiasm of a starving man. It’s not quite enough to ease their churning stomach. But it helps.

Ban shifts back into his more human form, dropping from the tree with barely a thump. “Really?” he asks, casting a judging eye over their work. “There’s no use for that.”

They don’t answer him back. It doesn’t matter right now. The University should be able to help. The students, the staff, the fae there playing favourites and playing at benevolence- they should be able to help. They could do better than Lyric-Weaver, at any rate. They are meant to deal with humans.

The human doesn’t seem to notice when they begin to blur out of sight, being brought out of the Other lands and into the solidity on the human world. Lyric-Weaver does. They are careful to send the little thing out onto the front steps, into the wide open expanse of the grounds where the students like to roam. Someone is sure to see them. Someone is sure to care. Humans are- and have always been- more caring than their own kind. They’ll have to put that to use once more.

“We should head over to Winter,” Lyric-Weaver says quietly, pretending to search the rest of Autumn be damned. They know the girl Lento is not here. They are wasting their time. And, perhaps, they want to get away from the body they left behind them.

“Winter’s worse. There are more of these things. More places to starve in there.”

“I don’t c-” No. They care. Much more than Ban, at least. “I know. I’m going anyway. You still coming?”

“All the way to the border. So says our Deal.” Ban follows behind them as they start walking, his steps light on the dirt. “You know, Summer tree, you’re not quite who I thought you’d be.”

 _You’re interesting_ , Lyric-Weaver hears, past the careful nonchalance. _You’re more than I thought you’d be._

They can’t bring themselves to care about that. Not as they close on the Winter border, their basket barely any emptier.


End file.
